Talking Farming in the Year of the Horse: A Bumper Grain Harvest
In the Year of the Ox or Horse, farming goes well. Grain growers toil for a year, and Heaven rewards diligence with a bountiful harvest.
This year marks the opening year of the new national food security strategy and a crucial year for defending high grain output levels after ten consecutive years of increase. Throughout the year, grain production withstood multiple tests including severe natural disasters in some areas, frequent biological disasters and a volatile market environment, achieving a total output of 1,214.2 billion jin, an increase of 10.32 billion jin, and another bumper harvest.
“This year’s harvest is decent, we can eat good steamed buns!” “Over the year, we threshed over 2,000 jin of rice!” “The grain yield was not small, and my income this year is quite good!” In Zhumadian of Henan, Qihe of Shandong, and Jianli of Hubei, scenes of bountiful harvests were delightful everywhere, with joy written on every farmer’s face.
A bumper harvest cannot be achieved without policy implementation, production guidance, scientific and technological yield increases, and disaster prevention and mitigation.
With a high starting point and high costs, how can grain production achieve another bumper harvest? It is strong policy support that consolidates the foundation. Subsidy funds for improved seeds, high-yield creation, and soil testing and formula fertilization were deployed early to benefit farmers; subsidy policies such as “one spray and three preventions” for wheat and centralized rice seedling raising resolved risks in grain production; the minimum purchase price policy shored up farmers’ enthusiasm for growing grain, and the grain sown area expanded by more than 5 million mu compared with last year.
At the key junctures of autumn and winter planting, spring plowing and the “three summer” production period, the “battle to strengthen guidance and services for another bumper summer grain harvest”, the “battle against low temperatures and spring waterlogging to ensure spring sowing in Northeast China”, and the “action to strengthen services and scientifically combat disasters for a bumper autumn grain harvest” — these three battles ensured timely and adequate production guidance at important stages.
On the merit roll of the bumper harvest, agricultural science and technology deserve no small credit. In the high-yield wheat trial field of the 200,000-mu grain yield increase model research core area in Qihe, Shandong, the wheat expert guidance group of the Ministry of Agriculture conducted an actual harvest verification, with an average yield of 715.97 kg per mu — science and technology deserve the top credit. With one hand promoting high-yield creation on a whole-system basis, and the other hand tackling yield increase models to accumulate scientific and technological strength for increasing output, in the “Year of Upgrading Grain High-Yield Creation and Yield Increase Model Research”, the dual-driven approach of following prescriptions and researching new prescriptions let scientific and technological yield increases shine. Area expansion and per-unit yield improvement worked together, and only then did the year’s grain harvest fight a beautiful battle.
In April this year, wheat in the Jianghuai region encountered continuous overcast rain during the heading and flowering stage; in summer and autumn, parts of the Huanghuai and Northeast regions again suffered severe summer-autumn drought. On the basis of early research and judgment and timely warnings, vigorous efforts were made to promote deep loosening and land preparation, rice greenhouse seedling raising, and drought-resistant “water-seated sowing” for corn, as well as techniques such as post-sowing compaction, winter irrigation, and “one spray and three preventions” for wheat in the Huanghuaihai region, firmly grasping the initiative in disaster avoidance.
“Drought breeds insects, dampness breeds disease.” This year, crop pest and disease disasters occurred more frequently and severely than in previous years. In the golden rice fields of farmer He Shuguo in Qingshanpu Town, Changsha County, Hunan Province, the rice bent low with its head bowed, while insect-killing lamps, traps and other green prevention and control facilities stood tall. The integrated advancement of unified prevention and control with green prevention and control, and the innovative transformation of pest and disease control organization methods and technical systems, are taking root in the fields. In the 218 demonstration zones for integrated advancement of specialized unified prevention and control with green prevention and control established by the Ministry of Agriculture, chemical pesticide use decreased by 20%-30% while average per-mu yield increased by more than 8%. According to statistics, this year achieved 213 billion jin in “grabbing grain from the mouths of pests”, and pest control and disease prevention made great contributions to the bumper harvest.
Looking back at the bumper harvest, the grain increase did not come easily, and it fully proves that the Chinese people’s rice bowl can be firmly held in their own hands, and the Chinese bowl can be filled with Chinese grain! Looking ahead to next year, facing new situations, new tasks and new challenges, it is still necessary to establish the food security concept of “basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple food”, fully tap new potential in production capacity, stabilize output and ensure security.